Research of 3D Thermal and Flow Fields for a Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor for Vehicle

In this paper, a vehicle permanent magnet synchronous motor is taken as the research object. First, a physical model of the computational domain with the axial cooling channel is established. The flow and thermal fields of the motor including the stator and rotor are numerically simulated based on the Finite Volume Method (FVM) according to the basic assumptions and the corresponding boundary conditions. Then, the influences of cooling channel structure, cooling channel size, and coolant inlet temperature and flow rate on fluid and thermal fields of the motor are researched. The results show that cooling channel structure, cooling channel width and height, coolant inlet temperature, and flow rate are all can affect the velocity pressure drop, and temperature of the motor. Finally, the numerical simulation data are compared with the experimental and the errors are small, which meets the engineering requirement. The results in this paper can provide a theoretical basis for the research and optimization of permanent magnet synchronous motors.